Moscow Takes Note of Active Russian-Indian Economic Co-operation

Russian-Indian economic co-operation has been enhanced recently due to large-scale long-term projects, said Foreign Ministry's official spokesman Alexander Yakovenko in an interview with RIA Novosti devoted to the forthcoming Tuesday visit by Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha to Moscow.

The spokesman said that Mr Sinha was visiting Moscow as a co-chairman of the intergovernmental commission on trade, economic, scientific, technical and cultural co-operation. The visit will be an important step towards its next session to be held in the first half of this year in Moscow.

The agenda of the negotiations includes the discussion of Russian-Indian co-operation and its future development.

According to Alexander Yakovenko, great attention will be paid to the agreements reached during the official visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to India in December 2002.

As of July 1, 2002 Russian-Indian trade reached 580 million dollars. But Moscow believes that trade and economic relations between the two countries do not live up to the two countries' potential in terms of their quantitative and qualitative indicators.

The Indian Foreign Minister is expected to meet Russia's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and heads of other Russian ministries.